


Between Falls The Shadow

by RedTeamShark



Category: Kingdom (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Day drinking, Gen, Hospitals, Introspection, Open Ending, The Hollow Men - T. S. Elliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 09:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30103848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: This is the way the world ends.--After it all, Alvey turns to his two favorite coping mechanisms: alcohol and avoidance.
Kudos: 1





	Between Falls The Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Kingdom again because it came to Netflix and I still can't make myself actually rewatch the last two episodes of season 3, so have an alternate ending based on what I vaguely recall. This has been roughly in my head for like two years, since the first time I saw the show, so I decided to finally write it down.  
> Arguably more hopeful than the actual canon ending.

T. S. Elliot can eat shit.

The world ends with a bang, not a whimper.

It echoes off the surrounding buildings in the Tucson night, a crack and a flash like thunder and lightning. The perfect cataclysm of destruction to the stormy chaos that comes with the name Kulina.

Alvey doesn’t remember what he was yelling about, who he was yelling at, why he was so fucking angry. It doesn’t matter, because Nate’s blood is on his hands and the night is painted in flashing red as the screaming ambulance comes.

Tucson General Hospital. He still has a visitor badge stuck to his other shirt.

Jay sits with him and he stares at the blood on his hands and listens to the gunshot echo through his head. Louder than when Chapas shot himself--how is that possible? 

Eventually, a doctor comes to tell them the news. To tell him the last words he ever said to his son.

“We’ve stabilized him as well as we can for now. He’s in a coma and we won’t know the extent of the damage until he wakes up. If he wakes up. You can go see him.”

“Dad…” Jay stands, looks back at him, and Alvey waves him off.

“Go. I… I’ll wait here.”

* * *

He still has a fight.

Every fucking reporter wants to talk about Nate, ask after his son, act like he’s in any headspace to even _think_ about Tucson. Thank fuck for Lisa, there once again to try to salvage the mess he’s made of his life.

In the cage it’s different.

There’s clarity in the cage, purpose instead of a spiraling lack of control.

Alvey fights because it’s what he was born to do. Violence by divine creation. Channeling every echoing gunshot in his mind through his fists and into Hughes’ face until there’s nothing left of either of them.

A million dollar fight where every camera flash is accompanied by the worst words he’s ever said.

Christina is in Tucson, waiting by Nate’s bedside for anything to happen. She’ll call. Maybe not call him, but she’ll call someone else who will call him and tell him the last words he ever said to his son.

Nothing good in his life gets to stay. He thought he’d accepted that a long time ago.

Alvey goes back to his gym and lies in his cage, trying to recapture that clarity that used to come with a fight. _Once you’re locked in the cage, all doubt flees_. That’s what he once told his shrink. He’d probably believed it then.

He thinks about buying a plane ticket to Tucson. He thinks about jumping off a bridge. He thinks about getting in his truck and just--driving. Disappearing. Becoming someone else somewhere else.

He thinks about his father and he might black out.

There’s blood on his hands again when he opens his eyes.

* * *

Nate wouldn’t want to see him anyways. Not after what he said, what he did. What he caused.

Lisa tells him to go to Tucson and maybe that’s the only reason he does it. Because his other option is moping around the gym and starting fights he doesn’t even want to win.

The world around him hasn’t been much but static for--shit, has it been a week? Something fades back in while he’s waiting for his visitor badge to be printed.

“I’m sorry, sir, but only family are allowed visitation.”

“His brother was supposed to call and have me added.”

“I don’t have anything in the record for that.”

“ _Shit_.”

Well, someone’s life sucks worse than his. Alvey takes his visitor badge and goes for the waiting room. He’s here, that doesn’t mean he has to be upstairs.

The stranger from the desk isn’t far away, a phone pressed to his ear. “Come on, pick up-- _fuck_.” He hangs up, drops into a chair and buries his head in his heads. “God dammit.”

“Sounds like you’re having a rough day.” Is that his voice? He sounds like he’s been gargling glass. When’s the last time he actually heard himself talk?

The man looks up, shakes his head slightly. “You could say that. They let you have a badge, at least.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m doing anything with it.” Nothing but turning the thin paper between his hands. They fall into quiet and he stares out the tinted windows at the bright Arizona sun. “Who are you trying to see?”

“My boyfriend.”

Alvey doesn’t move for a while. Somewhere deep in the reaches of his mind, gunshots echo over the last words he ever said to... “My son.”

“I’m sorry.”

He folds his badge up, shoves it in his pocket. “You came all this way to see someone and they won’t even let you go up there.”

“Not as far as you’re thinking. I’ve lived in the US for a while now. And I’ll be able to go up once his brother sorts it out.”

Alvey nods, standing up. “Well, no point in sitting around here waiting for a phone call. This place is fucking depressing. How ‘bout we find a bar that’s open at ten in the morning and I buy you a drink?”

“And get yourself some liquid courage?”

His face twitches into what he thinks might be a smile. “Yeah.”

* * *

The stranger he buys a drink for is named Will. Alvey introduces himself in the quiet atmosphere of the hotel bar. No where else is serving drinks before two in the afternoon for some fucking reason. 

“Lemme ask you a question, Will,” he says, three or four strong drinks in and starting to find that his voice doesn’t sound like broken glass anymore. “You said back at the hospital that you were trying to see your… boyfriend.”

“I am.”

“So that makes you…”

“Gay.” So nonchalant, so unguarded. The quiet piano music of a hotel bar behind the word.

No honky tonk jukebox or confused anger or fear or--

Alvey takes another drink. “Did you tell your old man?”

“Not in so many words. He found me rather… compromised with a school mate.”

His glass is empty so he waves down the bartender for another one. “How’d he take it?”

“Why do you think I moved a quarter of the way around the world? I’ll take another, too, thanks.”

Hard liquor burns in his throat, in his stomach, in his heart. Alvey downs his drink and reaches for his wallet. “You want to know the last thing I said to my son? The last words he might ever hear from me?”

“If you want to tell me.”

Gunshots echoing across the Tucson night. Blood on his hands. The world ends not with a bang, but with--

“I said ‘how could you do this to me?’ Like he told me just to ruin _my_ life. The fuck is wrong with me?” Liquor doesn’t usually make his eyes burn. Doesn’t usually blur his vision so badly he can’t even see what bill he’s putting on the bartop. “I called him a goddamn faggot.”

Next to him, Will isn’t moving. His half-finished drink is still between his fingers. His eyes are on Alvey. “Go see him. Go say something else. Tell him that you love him in case you never get another chance. For god’s sake, Alvey, Nate’s your _son_.”

He’s still got the visitor badge in his pocket. Even though he must reek like a distillery, the nurses let him in and tell him where to go.

Alvey stands outside Nate’s door, listens to the heart monitor beep, to the machines that are keeping his son alive, and thinks about how the world ends.


End file.
